


you really got a hold on me

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Making Out, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1809676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a dialogue meme prompt on tumblr, in which my story had to include the following line: "Hey, have you seen the…? Oh.”</p><p>Set in mid-s5. Consider this a substitute first kiss scene, plus or minus additional tipsiness and general office shenanigans. Another fanfic trope gets checked off the list!</p>
            </blockquote>





	you really got a hold on me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adreadfulidea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/gifts).



Eight o'clock, and the office is blissfully quiet.

No ringing telephones, no typing, nobody talking too loudly or blaring awful music in the lounge. Joan's in the middle of dropping off several corrected letters onto Clara's desk when the creak of a door opening to her left makes her turn.

“Oh,” says Lane, framed in his open doorway, looking just as surprised to see her here so late at night. He's clearly not leaving for the day. He's not even wearing his suit jacket. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his vest is unbuttoned, although the rest of his appearance is neat as usual. “I thought everyone had gone. Sorry.”

She gives him a smile. If he wants to leave the door open while he works, she doesn't care. “Pay no attention to the woman behind the glass. I'll be through in a little while.”

“You got here before I did,” Lane says after a pause, frowning as if he doesn't understand her little joke.

“I did,” Joan says, placing drafts of two financial memos onto Scarlett's desk. That's the last of the papers in her hands. She lets out an amused huff of breath. “My mother and the baby don't facilitate an ideal work environment.”

He laughs at this, leaning against his doorway. “I should imagine not.”

A brief silence stretches between them.

“Well,” Joan says, giving him a fond look. “Mr. Pryce, I will leave you to your overtime.”

“Would you—like to have a drink?” he blurts in response. She glances back at him, surprised, as he continues. “That is—if you can spare a moment.”

They take tea in his office on a weekly basis, and have eaten lunch together on many occasions, but he's never suggested spending time together after work, even for something as casual as an after work cocktail. And maybe it's the way faint light streams in from the well-lit office behind him, but Lane's face looks a little flushed.

“I could use a break,” Joan finally responds, with a shrug of one shoulder.

One drink could be fun. It might be helpful to take some time away from the reports. She hasn't even had dinner.

He motions her to come through, moving back into his office with a little laugh. “Well. Follow the yellow brick road, I suppose.”

She can't help smiling at his awkward joke. “I didn't think you knew that movie.”

**

One drink turns into two. Long after the sun sets, they're sitting together on the sofa in Lane's office in content silence, with the door open and Joan's transistor radio turned up low from its new place in the middle of his desk.

“I like listening to my music at work,” she says with a smile, as another Ella Fitzgerald tune strikes up. She hasn't heard this song in years.

Lane grins at her, sitting up a little to put his glass back onto the coffee table. “Not a fan of rock and roll, hm?”

He does a sort of exaggerated twist from the waist up, arms braced at his sides in a supremely awkward way, as if trying to convince her to dance. Joan bursts out laughing.

“Not the songs creative picks out.”

“They do have very strange taste,” he admits, putting a hand to his forehead. “What's the one—with that loud guitar bit in the middle—and the man shouting repeatedly—?”

“All of them,” Joan says drily. Lane snorts out an amused noise.

“No—the boys had it on the turntable before they left. Motorbike types, you know. With the—” he mimes two hands spread wide next to his head— “mad hair, and dungarees, and the jackets—”

She's laughing even harder. “You can describe the album cover, but not the _song?_ ”

“Oh,” he huffs, pretending to be upset, “well, we're just going to have to find it, then.” He jumps up from the sofa, holding out a hand to her. “Come on. We'll have a little walk.”

“You can't be serious,” Joan scoffs, but she's already reaching for Lane's hand, setting her empty glass aside on the end table as they walk briskly toward creative. When they get to the doorway, Lane drops her hand, analyzing the closed door with an intent expression, as if anticipating he'll have to pick the lock. He stands motionless for several seconds before Joan reaches around him and turns the knob. It opens easily.

“They could have their things stolen!” he says, feigning outrage, glancing back to Joan as if he can't believe anyone would be so cavalier with their belongings.

“All they have in here is pot,” Joan counters, which makes him snicker and shake his head.

He takes her hand again, and they walk inside, not bothering to shut the door behind them. Joan's first thought, as Lane goes to turn on a table lamp, is that the room looks like the aftermath of a file cabinet explosion. Papers are strewn all over the large desk – Peggy's, she guesses, judging by the well-worn typewriter facing the bookcase, and maybe Stan's, if the stray pieces of artwork on the opposite side are any indication of use. In the middle of this desk is a shallow glass coaster serving as an ashtray. And in the right-hand corner by the window, next to a stack of posterboards, is a desk overflowing with drawings, file folders, pencils, pens, candy wrappers, and a prominent folio labeled – in huge red letters – S _hit I Gotta Do._ Underlined twice.

Lane's looking at this folder, too. They suddenly lock eyes, grinning, and speak at the same time. “Ginsberg.”

“Find your record,” Joan says, nudging Lane forward with the palm of one hand. “This place is a pigsty.”

Lane picks his way past the crowded desk toward the shared wall with his office, picking up the medium-sized stack of LPs and taking a seat on the green sofa to thumb through them. He only gets through a few before he looks up at Joan, motioning her closer, expression mischievous.

“What sort of name is _The Zombies?_ ”

She snorts. “Sounds like a gothic novel.”

He's turning the record over in his hands, studying the song titles printed on the B-side. “Must say, I'm a bit curious.”

Joan shrugs, pulling a face. “We should play it.”

Lane sets the rest of the stack in front of the sofa, to the left of his feet, and stands up to put the record on and place the needle. When the first few notes sound, he looks back to Joan, as if waiting for her immediate opinion.

_I don't like you, but I love you..._

Joan stares back at him, open-mouthed. “It's a cover. I know this song.”

“What?” he says, sitting down in the same place as before. “How on earth do you—”

She moves to sit down next to him as he speaks, catches the toe of her foot on the record pile, and stumbles, ending up sprawled across the sofa on her back with her legs in Lane's lap. His arm is pinned between the cushions and her waist, as if he'd gone to catch her when she fell and missed completely.

“You all right?” he blurts, trying to suppress a laugh and failing.

She covers her mouth with one hand, giggling despite herself. Jesus. She really should have eaten dinner. “I didn't hurt you?”

“No,” he says playfully, tapping the side of one of her knees with a hand. “Come on. Let's get you up.”

Joan moves into a seated pose. Once she's upright, the awkwardness of their positions makes itself that much clearer. She's sitting just beside his left hip, the side of her right leg flush against the front of his trousers, and now that she's upright, their faces are less than a few inches apart. His arm is still around her waist.

He's already flushed, blue gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth like he's dying to kiss her—and suddenly, staring back at him, that's all she wants. Lane leans in, very slightly, just enough to telegraph his intentions before Joan's eyes flutter closed and their lips meet: cautious at first, almost chaste. Suddenly, in what feels like no time at all, she's flat on her back on the sofa, running her tongue over his lower lip, hands threading through Lane's hair; while he's got one hand just below her hip and one around her back, kissing her with such passionate abandon she almost feels dizzy.

When she gets her legs up on either side of his hips, he actually whimpers against her mouth, grinding into her like an animal in heat. She sucks in a sharp breath at the contact, her hands skimming along the sides of his body so she can tug up his shirttails, feel his skin under her palms—

“Hey,” comes a sudden, loud voice, “have you seen the—oh, shit!”

Joan pulls back from Lane with a gasp, eyes flying open just in time to see Stan Rizzo disappearing from the doorway—she recognizes the fringed jacket.

“Lane,” she breathes, meaning he should move, and pushing gently at his shoulders, in case he's too worked up to get it. She'd yell at Stan, or say something kinder to the man on top of her, but she can't find the words. Her tongue feels like it's glued to the roof of her mouth. Nothing's running through her brain except the still-sharp pang of arousal, now mixed with embarrassment.

Judging by Lane's panicked expression as he moves away from her and gets to his feet, he's in a similar state. He's panting hard, like he's just run ten miles around a track, eyes dark, not even able to look at her as he hastily fixes his shirt, vest, and hair.

The record player's still going, loud harmonies breaking the tense silence: ... _and if she should tell you come closer, and if she tempts you with her charms_...

Lane reaches over and flips the needle back from the record in one quick motion.

“Uh, just so you know,” Stan calls out from somewhere down the hallway, voice much louder and higher than usual, “Ginzo and Olson are probably on their way up.”

Joan bites her lip to keep from laughing as she gets to her feet, smoothing out two deep wrinkles in her dress. Making out on someone else's sofa and getting caught, like a couple of horny teenagers. God. It would be pathetic if it hadn't been sexy.

“It isn't funny,” Lane whispers hotly, cheeks still pink, even in the low light. Joan takes his hand, trying to regain some kind of control.

“Sorry.” She forces herself to take two deep breaths, her brain still stuck on the word  _sexy_ . “I can't think right now.”

When she glances back at him, she notices he's staring at her in a way that would probably lead to more trouble, if it weren't for the bystanders just down the hall.

Joan gives him a pointed look, briefly squeezing his hand before letting it go, and motioning he should follow her. “Next time, we're not getting caught.”

As she walks out of creative, she can hear Lane's surprised huff of breath as he registers her words.  _Next time._

“Jesus,” comes a second voice somewhere near reception, seemingly oblivious to their disheveled state. “You guys are still here?!”

“Quiet!” Lane retorts. Now safely inside his office, Joan has to stifle another laugh.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [That song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Off_of_My_Cloud) Lane can't remember from [the album with the guys?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hits_\(High_Tide_and_Green_Grass\)) Was the first thing that popped into my head as I was writing this.
> 
> And as for that [Zombies album](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zombies_\(album\)) Lane and Joan end up listening to, I kind of wanted their makeout song to be "Time of the Season," but _Oracle and Odyssey_ didn't come out until '68, so I had to do a little creative maneuvering. Miracles/Sam Cooke covers FTW!


End file.
